The Victoria Bar & Kitchen — Restaurant in Gateshead

Visited for the first time on Saturday. First of all the food was gorgeous. I had the belly pork which was beautiful. The staff are friendly and welcoming. The music is good. I've knocked a point off for a couple of reasons most of which are easy fixes. The laches on the women's toilets don't stay shut. One of the girls had to put a sanitary bin in front of the door to try and keep it shut. I closed and locked the door to a different cubicle, did my business and when I looked up the door had unlatched when someone walked into the adjoining stall and closed the door. That was pretty embarrassing as someone could have seen me. Management please fix this because it's only a matter of time until more people will raise this since it's a pretty serious concern. Some of the drinks we got had the wrong ingridients, not a massive deal but both myself and my friend left our drinks half drank because they didn't really taste nice. Limoncello spritz are usually made with lemonade, the ones we got were with soda water. Again not the biggest issue and it might be a mistake due to the staff being overwhelmed at the time since it was busy but maybe if it's really busy allow for an extra member of staff on those days. The pub is very pretty but quite cramped which makes it hard to move around and might be an issue if evacuation is every needed. Might be worth moving some of the chairs around just to allow for more freedom of movement. Overall I would probably come back but not on a Saturday when...

I always fancied going in here. It always looked so cosy and was often very busy, when I drove past.

I got the feeling it had been taken over, but can’t be certain, because the bicycle wasn’t outside. Maybe someone had stolen it!

On arrival, I asked for a beer shandy. There were mostly lagers on the pumps. The lady behind the bar said ‘they are all beers’ (She obviously, didn’t have a clue, because beer is an ale, not a lager)! I had an IPA shandy. My husband had Stella Artois. My IPA shandy had a funny taste - not clean and even his Stella didn’t taste as nice as the lager in Germany, where we had been recently).

I had a chicken and bacon Caesar salad and a burger with bacon and cheese and my husband had chicken Parmo. The chicken and Caesar salad was quite nice. It wasn’t massive, but kind of filled me up.

I gave 3/4 of the burger to the dog, the burger had definitely been deep fried, because it had a crispy skin! The breadcrumbs on my husband‘s parmo, looked incredibly orange; (but I don’t suppose this was helped by a Red Leicester cheese that was melted over the top). The skinny fries looked awful - straight out of the freezer and tasteless.

For £40, I didn't think it was worth it really.

I...

Regular here with friends and family. It's one of the first places we take our guests due to the range of food and drink. The muscles are outstanding and so are the pizzas. The seating options are excellent and you can still order food when not sitting within the restaurant part. Service is generally quick. The regulars can be loud and definitely enjoy themselves, as does every dog which has The Vic on it's walking route. The only thing I want to see change are the toilets**. Not a fan of the 'No Charlie in the toilets' sign on the front of the door (hard one to explain to our 10 year old), and the inside is also pretty dire. The men's resembles a Victorian latrine whilst the women's is full of self-loathing and sexualised graffiti... This doesn't impact the rating, but it's the one thing that could be improved. It does however have a 'don't press this button' button which gives everyone a surprise.

*Edit 6.7.24 - toilets have been tidied up and are in much better nick. Visited on Friday and food, service and atmosphere...